Automatic Froogle Uploading with PHP

I am trying to write a PHP script which will automatically upload a
feed to Froogle when the script is run. I have succesfully generated
the feed, but am having trouble uploading it.

I am using the php function file_put_contents(), using an FTP string as
documented at http://uk.php.net/manual/en/wrappers.ftp.php - e.g.
username:password@hedwig.google.com. I keep getting errors, perhaps
because I had illegal characters in the password (!, $, and / seem to
mess it up).

Has anyone managed to upload using this method, or something similar.

Cheers,

Dunx
www.a-non.co.uk